After the long days of being so alone, the pain ebbed. I thought I would feel the knives in my back forever, the long blades slicing into such sensitive flesh. There were days my brain felt electrocuted, so violently defocused and the pain, the emotional pain, was so all encompassing I simply existed as a matter of will power. They say you come out of these things stronger, and I guess that's true, but you come out wiser too. I still have my loving heart, I am proud to say. I still have my idealism and courage. I still take forward leaps whether I can see the ground or not. But this heart, it's not for everyone, it's not for the ones who threw the knives, forgiven though they are.
When I was in pain from him, I took it out on you. When I couldn't say to him how his actions kept me in constant pain, you were the safe target. So all you saw was "push and pull." A push away when I needed to act out a form of "strength," and a pull when I panicked, needing you close. I'm sorry. I wasn't aware, now I am. It's you that heals my mind, with nothing fancier than a smile and warm hugs. It's you who picks up the phone, comes when I call. I guess this is recovery, when I can see the people who are really helping and ask them to come closer, staying quiet when the urges to push them away returns, ensuring that their kindness is mirrored by my actions and words.
Your suffering, your memory of it, is like a teddybear fashioned from glass shards - the tighter you cling to it the deeper it will cut. So perhaps practice putting it down for longer periods of time, noticing when you have picked it up and it slices at your skin. You and it are separate. One day you'll notice that the bad teddybear is gone, you lost it sometime and never noticed. You will see that your good and noble choices made a better life, something positive, and now you hold a new teddybear, soft and warm, one that brings an inner glow and keeps you cosy under starlight and sunshine alike.